Agenda item

The Lead Councillor for Economy introduced the item.  He praised the progress of both the customer service team and the internet team and requested that Councillors share complaints with him. 

• A member of the Committee questioned whether there was sufficient focus within the Council’s customer services on the residents that were unable to use online platforms, particularly those trying to access services by telephone.  In response, the Lead Councillor for Economy indicated that encouraging use of online services would free-up the phone service for those that were unable to use the internet and stated his confidence in the need and success of such an approach.  The Strategic Director of Transformation and Governance stated that the aim was to move seventy-five percent of customer contacts online and that over 47,000 residents had signed up to a MyGuildford account.  The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services indicated that approximately eighty-five percent of residents contacting the Council’s customer services had an online MyGuildford account.

• The Lead Councillor for Economy confirmed that the target operating model of customer contact – 75 percent of customer transactions undertaken online, 20 percent via telephone, and 5 percent face to face – came from the Future Guildford transformation programme.  The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services offered to share the customer service strategy with Committee members.

• In response to a question, the Lead Councillor for Economy suggested that automated service chatbots could help meet customer needs 24/7.  He confirmed that additional investment would be required to deliver such improvements.

• With reference to the report submitted to the Committee, a member of the Committee queried how often the two-day average response time for online enquiries was met. 

• The Lead Councillor for Economy stated that those people waiting on the Council’s customer service phone line for ten minutes were offered a call back; the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services confirmed that the goal was to lower the ten-minute waiting period.

• In response to a request from Committee members, the Lead Councillor for Economy and the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services undertook to provide the October contact statistics for customer services. 

• The Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services referred to the Council’s customer insight testing and requested that Councillors share customer feedback.

• A member of the Committee suggested publishing the quietest times of day for customers to contact customer services.  In response, the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Services indicated that doing so risked increasing call volumes and that there was seldom a time of day when people were not phoning customer services. 

• A member of the Committee referred to a KPMG internal audit report, considered by the Council’s Corporate Governance and Standards Committee, which had reviewed the Council’s customer complaints handling.  He stated that the audit had recommended the establishment of a central complaints team within the customer services team and the reporting of performance indicators for complaints handling.  The Committee member asked if there was sufficient resource within the customer service team for such complaints handling and whether performance indicators would be updated to reflect the recommendation.  The Lead Councillor for Economy advised that there were not sufficient resources within the customer services team to undertake complaints handling and suggested that it was not necessarily a role for customer services, or within his portfolio.  The Deputy Leader of the Council and Lead Councillor for Governance advised the meeting that there was a management action plan to address the findings of the internal audit and that it could be shared with Committee members.  The member of the Committee reiterated the request for relevant performance indicators for complaints handling to be reported to the Committee.

The Chairman thanked the Lead Councillor for Economy and the Executive Head of Communications and Customer Service.

RESOLVED:  That an update on the performance and progress of the Council’s customer service be provided to the Committee within 6-8 months.